Hiob 31:31

31 If the people of my tent were not obliged to say: Where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh?! - 32 The stranger did not lodge out of doors, I opened my door towards the street. Instead of אמרוּ, it might also be יאמרוּ (dicebant); the perf., however, better denotes not merely what happens in a general way, but what must come to pass. The "people of the tent" are all who belong to it, like the Arab. ahl (tent, metonym. dwellers in the tent), here pre-eminently the servants, but without the expression in itself excluding wife, children, and relations. The optative מי־יתּן, so often spoken of already, is here, as in Job 31:35; Job 14:4; Job 29:2, followed by the acc. objecti, for נשׂבּע is part. with the long accented a (quis exhibebit or exhibeat non saturatum), and מבּשׂרו is not meant of the flesh of the person (as even the lxx in bad taste renders: that his maids would have willingly eaten him, their kind master, up from love to him), but of the flesh of the cattle of the host. Our translation follows the accentuation, which, however, perhaps proceeds from an interpretation like that of Arnheim given above. His constant and ready hospitality is connected with the mention of his abundant care and provision for his own household. It is unnecessary to take ארח, with the ancient versions, for ארח, or so to read it; לארח signifies towards the street, where travellers are to be expected, comp. Pirke aboth i. 5: "May thy house be open into the broad place (לרוחה), and may the poor be thy guests." The Arabs pride themselves on the exercise of hospitality. "To open a guest-chamber" is the same as to establish one's own household in Arabic. Stories of judgments by which the want of hospitality has been visited, form an important element of the popular…

Job had often protested his integrity in general; here he does it in particular instances, not in a way of commendation (for he does not here proclaim his good deeds), but in his own just and necessary vindication, to clear himself from those crimes with which his friends had falsely charged him, which is a debt every man owes to his own reputation. Job's friends had been particular in their articles of impeachment against him, and therefore he is so in his protestation, which seems to refer especially to what Eliphaz had accused him of, Job 22:6, etc. They had produced no witnesses against him, neither could they prove the things whereof they now accused him, and therefore he may well be admitted to purge himself upon oath, which he does very solemnly, and with many awful imprecations of God's wrath if he were guilty of those crimes. This protestation confirms God's character of him, that there was none like him in the earth. Perhaps some of his accusers durst not have joined with him; for he not only acquits himself from those gross sins which lie open to the eye of the world, but from many secret sins which, if he had been guilty of them, nobody could have charged him, with, because he will prove himself no hypocrite. Nor does he only maintain the cleanness of his practices, but shows also that in them he went upon good principles, that the reason of his eschewing evil was because he feared God, and his piety was at the bottom of his justice and charity; and this crowns the proof of his sincerity. I. The sins from which he here acquits himself are, 1. Wantonness and uncleanness of heart (Job 31:1-4). 2. Fraud and injustice in commerce (Job 31:4-8). 3. Adultery (Job 31:9-12). 4. Haughtiness and severity towards his servants (Job 31:13-15). 5. Unmercifulness to the poo…

31:31-32 never turned away a stranger: The Old Testament values hospitality (Gen 18:1-13; 19:2-3; Judg 19:20-21), and the New Testament commands it (Matt 25:35; Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 3:2; Heb 13:2; 1 Pet 4:9).